Analog and Digital

Many people talk about the differences in being a "digital native" and a "digital immigrant". This difference is more than just how savvy one is with technology but seems to speak to a way of viewing and engaging the world.

In the style of Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a digital immigrant if you are giving directions to a location rather than just giving a physical address - you might be a digital immigrant. Or if you print out emails - you might be a digital immigrant. 

Digital native/immigrant language is not very helpful to me because it seems to categorize people by age. If you are less than 35 years old, you are a digital native. Older than that and you are an immigrant. But being a native or immigrant has little to do with age and more to do with worldview. 

I have met a number of young people who are savvy with technology and yet think very analogically at the same time I have met much older people who do not know snot about technology but think much more digitally. 

To this end, I find it helpful to talk about digital thinking and analog thinking.

This is not an essay on the full definitions of analog and digital thinking, but one point of divergence seems to be rooted in how each thinker deals with change.

There are a great number of people who identify the church needs to change - it is the nature of that change that  is the point of tension. Analog-ers want the church to change by just being better at what we are doing. We need to be better teachers - so we try to use video and twitter while preaching. We need to be better at selling ourselves - so we get involved with every social media we can imagine. We need to be better at managing the money - so we higher consultants to help with a stewardship campaign.

On the other hand, there are the digital thinkers who also identify the church needs to change, but not in the same way. The church does not need to just do what we are doing only better, but we need to do things differently. We need to change the way we preach not just do it better. We do not need to be better signs but build better people. Stewardship campaigns are no longer serving the purpose of helping people be better stewards, rather they are pledge drives with Jesus language. 

Analog thinking leads to a place where we build church buildings because we want the church to be around forever. Digital thinking leads to a place where we build the kingdom because we know the church is not what we are called to build.

These are just some basic thoughts that are not original and others around the world have already pointed out that how we address change is not generational but more worldview specific. It is the job of the digital thinkers to learn how the analog thinkers address change because it is the digital thinkers who are calling into question the sustainability of the current systems.

Quick question - do you think the church needs to be better (more efficient, greater communication, etc.) or do you think the church needs to be different (new language, different focus, etc.)?

Man bites dog...

"Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things... well, new things aren't what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don't want to know that man bites dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds . . . Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true. "


—Terry Pratchett, through the character Lord Vetinari from his "The Truth" a Novel of Disworld.


This might help explain why so many people can become offended by alternate theologies.

Church as a statue

Came across this video and I could not help but wonder if there was a connection between the statue and the church in a couple of ways.




Among many church leaders and members we still operate under the impression that we have arrived.  That is to say, we have created something that is great and people will come to it because we have "good news" and the church provides for people something they could not get anywhere else.  Like this statue, many in the church feel that if you just build it people will come and look at it and admire it and interact with it in "an appropriate " way.

But the thing is the world has and is changing so much that now people are much more like this playful dog than casual observers of the statue.

That is to say, people are interacting with the church differently than expected and the church is still expecting people to interact with it in ways that no longer are viable.  People are wondering if the church will move and interact with the world, or if it will just sit there and continue to look pretty.